


fashioning new gods

by renaissance



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Classism, Foreshadowing, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Origin Story, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28128690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: A devotional quintet: the fragmentary history of Henry's bacchanal.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 33
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	fashioning new gods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aaronlisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronlisa/gifts).



> To my recipient—happy Yuletide! I was inspired by your prompts for character motivation studies and for something that takes place before Richard joined the group. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Thanks to aroceu for proofreading!
> 
> Henry is so fascinatingly complex and I had a lot of fun exploring him here. However, I do want to say that his views in many parts of this fic do not reflect mine. Nothing that warrants a warning beyond the Classism tag, but he's a wealthy character who's some degree of uncritical about his status, so you know, take his opinions with a pinch of salt.
> 
> Title is from the song "Pure Comedy" by Father John Misty, which I listened to more times than I would care to admit while I worked on this.

**V.**

After the third failed attempt, Henry snaps.

“Next time,” he says, “no Bunny. I am drawing a line.”

“Fine with me,” Francis says lightly. On this occasion, Henry will let him have his smug smile: if it were up to Francis, Bunny would never have been involved in the first place.

The four of them are sitting around the classroom table in the Lyceum, waiting for Julian. And mercifully neither Bunny or Richard are here—Bunny is under the weather, hungover from their last Dionysian cocktail, and Richard is late, because, to put it plainly, Richard is a disaster.

“I do wonder,” Charles says, “if we mightn’t bring Richard.”

He’s met with silence. Camilla, who has confided in Henry that she thinks Richard might _like_ her, drums her fingers on the table. Charles looks at her sharply, as though it’s her approval he needs, but it’s Francis who speaks first.

“I’m just charmed by that strange little Californian,” he says. “I say we invite him out. If it doesn’t work, it’d certainly be easier to brush him aside than it will be to get Bunny out of the picture.”

“Oh, yes, Bunny’s going to stay tenacious,” Charles says. “It’s almost not worth trying.”

Henry can’t help the harsh edge to his tone: “It _is_.”

“Yes, fuck Bunny, et cetera,” Camilla says, “but what about Richard? I’m not sold.”

“You don’t like him?” Francis teases, and Henry wonders how much Camilla has told him.

All Camilla says is, “Richard has not convinced me yet.”

“Look, I like the chap,” Charles says, “and I say we have him join us next time.”

“Two for, and one against.” Francis fixes Henry with an accusing look, though he’s not done anything to deserve it yet. “Where do you stand?”

It’s not as though Henry hasn’t thought about it. Disaster or not, Richard gets that fire in his eyes sometimes, the thing that Henry saw in Francis and then in the twins. He’s earnt his place in Julian’s class, though privately Henry thinks it could have gone either way. But he wants it. He wants it so badly and so earnestly that it elevates him.

 _Want_ is immaterial, though, in the sense that you can’t just _want_ yourself into being someone new. Richard thinks he has them all fooled with his decent suits and his imitation mannerisms, but in the end he tries so hard that he only stands out more.

Sometimes Henry looks at Richard and sees himself.

“Against,” Henry says.

“Well that doesn’t help anyone,” Charles says, folding his arms.

Camilla begins, “A draw suggests we err on the side of caution—”

And Charles cuts her off: “You _would_ say that.”

“She’s right, though,” Francis says. “As much as I want to see Richard cut loose a little, it doesn’t need to be right away.”

“I’m sure you can think of plenty other ways to facilitate that,” Charles says.

“Richard has shown no interest in pushing the bounds of consciousness and forging a connection with the improbable,” Henry says, matter-of-fact. “Nor, I think, can he be trusted with a secret. So: no Bunny, no Richard. Are we agreed?”

“Yes,” Camilla says.

“Makes no difference to me,” Francis says.

“ _Fine_ ,” Charles says.

Henry nods once, satisfied. The four of them are seconds away from being in over their heads; he feels it on the wind, knows it as surely as he knows he’ll be ready for the sudden change, when it comes. Maybe Richard, with his unlikely fervour and devotion to devotion itself, will work it out. Maybe he’ll ask after Dionysian worship without Henry having to prompt him.

Maybe he won’t, and this storm cloud will pass without incident.

Either way—there’s no need to pray for rain.

  
  


**IV.**

The storm comes down heavy and hard over Hampden, black skies casting the campus in darkness like the stage of a theatre, sparsely lit by striking lightning. Shadows run long in the Lyceum classroom; today Julian’s collection of paraphernalia looks less like a friendly antiques store and more like a haunted doll’s house.

Henry and Francis sit alone in the classroom, half an hour before the lesson is due to start. With Arabella and Wilson having graduated, it’s just the three of them—and Francis is notably more relaxed when Bunny isn’t around.

“Well?”

“Well, there’s nothing in here I can use,” Henry says. He closes the book just as a clap of thunder resounds through the air. “You can take it back this weekend.”

“The essay isn’t due for another two weeks. You can stop fretting. Come over with me, borrow something else.”

“Thanks,” Henry says. “I like it out there. You know I always like to visit.”

“Careful,” Francis says.

“Of… ? What’s lurking in the woods?”

They’ve been walking in the woods many times now. The first time, they got horribly lost, after Francis and Bunny fought about the right way back; Francis decided they would die there. The second time they were all drunk and it should have been even worse, but something brilliant was in the air that night and the woods and the house had seemed to be almost on top of one another, lake water flooding in waves around the tree trunks and all through their nice shoes, though nothing got wet.

Henry thinks about that night a lot, wants to scoop it up and bottle it.

“We’ll just have to find out,” Francis says mildly.

“Drink, drugs,” Henry says. Francis’ eyebrows shoot up. “Dionysus.”

“A bacchanal.”

Henry shrugs, like that wasn’t exactly what he was suggesting. “We could, at the very least, attempt to capture the spirit. Something… unfettered. Occult.”

“I do like that,” Francis says. He leans back in his chair, smirking. “Never thought you were the type.”

“It’s not necessarily the mysticism that captures my imagination,” Henry says. “Nor the idea of being so out of my mind, in isolation. But the thought that, in there somewhere, we might get close to something like the truth—to really knowing what the Greeks and the Romans knew. What’s been lost since.”

Francis hums. “You might be onto something there. But mostly I’m interested in the getting out of my mind part.”

Henry laughs at that, and as a consequence his eyes are on Francis when the classroom door opens; he watches the change in Francis’ face, his lips parting in confusion. Henry turns his head and sees the source of it: those freshman twins that everyone’s pretending they haven’t noticed around campus. Pale and rosy-cheeked like characters stepped right out of a Fragonard painting, the twins have none of the baroque timidness you’d expect from their looks. They walk into the classroom in silence, that same confidence and impenetrability that radiates off them when they cut across the lawns, and each take a seat at the table.

“Julian did mention we might be getting new classmates,” Francis says at last, sitting forward and placing his chin in his hands. “And who might you be?”

They’re beautiful, really. (“And what is beauty?” asks the Julian that lives in the back of Henry’s mind, always.) But the girl especially—there’s something so unlikely about her. Henry has never had time for dating, not with all the study he does. For the most part, he doesn’t think about it. Doesn’t let it show on his face.

“Camilla,” she says.

“Charles,” he says. “Macaulay.”

Francis shakes both their hands across the table, in turn. “Well, we’re delighted to have you in our class,” he says, and Henry knows he means it. “Something tells me you both take this _very_ seriously.”

If Henry is quietly taken with Camilla, Francis soon becomes loudly curious about Charles. Charles is as frequently charming and gregarious as he is foul-tempered and recalcitrant. He and Camilla present themselves, whether consciously or not, as something to be solved. Francis seems to work them both out quickly enough: within a fortnight, Camilla lets him kiss her on the cheek and swing her around at parties, and by the end of the party he’s disappearing with Charles.

Henry is still puzzling them out.

The one thing he does know is that Camilla and Charles feel the same way about studying the Classics—here, with Julian—as he and Francis do. Henry has come to understand that, in many ways, it’s a question not only of dedication but of temperament. The four of them share a certain _sang-froid_ , a methodical sort of passion that finds the same value in a rose petal as a red, raw wound.

When they come to the country house, they dip their feet in the lake, pour their wine into the water—“As an offering,” Charles jokes. Francis takes them to the first floor study and lets them borrow his books, shows them card tricks. Charles drinks almost too much and becomes the perfect entertainer; Camilla is quiet, but every now and then she’ll burst into a spell of melodrama, and Henry can never take his eyes off her.

It’s on one of these nights that Henry finds the two of them by the lake’s edge, a matching set and their mirror image. He kicks a stone from the banks into the depths of the water. “Could disappear out here.”

“Oh, yes, that sounds like a real lark,” Charles says. It’s hard to say whether or not he’s being sarcastic. “I’ll take drowning over Monday’s essay, any day.”

Camilla plucks a long-stalked iris, growing from the marshy shallows, and arranges it about her face like a frame. “Drowning,” she declares, “takes a certain grace.”

“If you could do it,” Henry says, “and come back to yourself afterwards—would you?”

“Absolutely,” Charles says, no hesitation.

“Sounds nice,” Camilla says. “Just to—stop, for a while.”

“Francis has stronger spirits in the kitchen,” Henry points out. Francis himself is half-asleep on the porch, an empty wine glass resting in his lap. Bunny is nowhere to be seen. Henry takes his chance: “Unless you mean something else… ?”

The twins exchange a look. Camilla says, “Something else? Henry Winter, are you selling pills on the side?”

He laughs, shocked. “Do you really think I would?”

“No,” she says, “but you’re certainly selling something.”

“You know what it makes me think of?” Charles gets to his feet, unsteady, and gestures out across the twilit landscape. “All this debauchery. This pure hedonism—the idea of doing it without consequence. I think Dionysus would be proud.”

“I would rather you throw us a bacchanal than sell us pills,” Camilla says.

“Why am _I_ throwing it?” Henry asks.

They fix him with identical _are you stupid?_ stares. “Because you’re the most serious of us,” Charles says. “I would trust you to drown me and bring me back to life.”

Camilla nods. “Henry Winter.” The way she says his name makes him feel anything but _serious_. “God of—something.”

Before he can chase that thought, the back door to the house crashes open and Bunny comes clattering out, waking Francis with a start. Bunny sees them down by the lake and waves, running towards them.

“Say,” he calls, “what’s going on out here?”

  
  


**III.**

“You’re planning something,” Bunny says. He jabs his fountain pen—mercifully capped—at the top of Henry’s note paper. “This is not Homer.”

“No,” Henry says, not looking up.

“No, it’s not Homer, or no, you’re not planning anything?”

He looks up then, fixing Bunny with a searching frown. “I am neither writing the Odyssey nor planning anything.”

“Well, damn it, you know your Greek is better than mine. Tell me what it is you’re writing.”

“No,” Henry says again. It’s best to be plain with Bunny. If you give him an inch, he’ll twist the measuring tape and tell you it’s three.

Bunny arches an eyebrow. “If you had been at school with me, I might have targeted you in dodgeball. Writing your own Greek, for fun, in your spare time?”

“Why did you join the Classics program if you find that sort of thing worthy of scorn?” Henry shoots back. And he trusts that Bunny knows what he’s _really_ talking about.

“Obviously I’ve changed,” Bunny says, full of self-righteous hot air. He taps Henry’s forehead with the fountain pen. It makes Henry want to grab the pen and break it in two—he’s quite certain he could do it easily. But they’re in Julian’s classroom and Henry doesn’t want to make a mess.

He folds his notebook closed. “If you’re not interested, I won’t work on it around you.”

“Sure.” Bunny shrugs. “It’s no skin off my back.”

They sit in sullen silence, until the snap of a door opening fast jolts them both out of it. Henry looks to Julian’s office but it’s not him, not yet—it’s the classroom door. Henry expects to see either Wilson or Arabella, but this young man is neither: an elegant stick figure in a dress shirt and a black greatcoat, pince-nez glasses resting on the bridge of his sharp nose, a mop of red hair.

“Are you lost?” Henry inquires politely.

One of these rare, salient comments from Bunny: “Gothic literature is two buildings down, old sport.”

A most unbeautiful expression twists the interloper’s mouth. “This is Julian Morrow’s classroom, isn’t it? I believe I’m early.”

“My apologies,” Henry says. “Julian hadn’t told us we were getting a new classmate today.”

“Julian never tells us anything,” Bunny adds, a bitter hint of pride in his voice.

The new guy doesn’t seem bothered by this. He takes the seat between Henry and Bunny and crosses one leg over the other. Though he’s by no means short, he’s made miniature between the two of them, a porcelain doll of a person. He opens a creased leather messenger bag and lays out a notebook and—Henry is pleased to note—a fountain pen and jar of ink. His notebook is monogrammed: F. A. He does not introduce himself.

Once Arabella and Wilson have arrived and class is in session, Julian makes the introduction: his name is Francis, his other major is French literature. “He’s New England to the bone,” Bunny says later. “Sure as rain.” And he’s proven right when, later that week, Francis invites the four of them to his aunt’s country house, just a short drive from Hampden. He spends the drive talking about Boston. By now, Henry is well-accustomed to having a motor-mouth for a friend, but the way Francis talks is different to the way Bunny talks: Bunny loves the sound of his own voice; Francis hates the silence. Henry trusts him instinctively.

And Francis is eager to be trusted. When they arrive at the country house, there’s a meal already most of the way to completion; while Francis finishes cooking, he serves them wine, something French and impossibly expensive.

“You sure know how to treat a girl,” Arabella says, raising her glass. “Now when’s the last time any of you boys threw a soirée half so classy?”

“Not all of us have a place like this at our disposal,” Wilson says, which is rich, coming from him.

Henry takes a sip of his wine. “It’s nice out here, Francis. I’d like to see it during the daytime. Perhaps we could have a study weekend.”

“ _A study weekend_ ,” Bunny says, under his breath. 

But Francis is delighted by the idea: “You name the weekend.”

The five of them sit out under the clear navy sky to eat, looking out across a modest lake and woodlands that hint at vastness beyond. Henry watches as Francis crouches down by the lake and, wine glass in one hand, trails his fingers through the water. It crosses his mind that Francis should, by all rights, seem more at ease out here. At home, in his element, all that sort of thing—but he doesn’t. Something about him doesn’t sit right, something about the way he exerts more effort than most people to keep afloat in a social situation. Compare that to the way he comes alive when he’s reading out a poem in class or whispering about a translation in the library.

When Henry pauses to think about it, he understands perfectly.

The evening winds down as the sun sets; the wine still flows, dragonflies skim the surface of the lake. “Cards!” Bunny exclaims, pushing aside his empty plate. “Who’s for cards?”

Wilson takes him up on it; Francis retreats to the back porch, kicks off his shoes.

“Henry, come with me,” Francis says.

“Does it take two to carry your cards?” Bunny asks; Arabella laughs behind her hand.

Francis just stares them down. “Yes.”

And when they’re further in the house—of course Henry follows—Francis says, “Actually, I wanted to show you something.”

“Should I be excited?”

“Oh, it’s not so exciting,” Francis says, in the manner of a deliberate understatement. “I just know you’ll appreciate it, and that lot won’t.”

Francis leads him up a creaking staircase and into a study that looks out across the lake. Either side of the windows, the walls are floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves. A great deal of these books are even older than the ones in Julian’s office.

“My aunt is a great collector,” Francis says. He gestures to the left shelves. “This is her Classical library, more or less. Not sure she knows what half of these books are for, but there you have it. They’re yours to borrow, if you’d like.”

“Thank you,” Henry says. Wine doesn’t usually get to his head, but right now he’s spinning. “Francis—you understand, don’t you?”

Francis looks up from the drawer he’s just opened, holding a pack of cards. “Understand what?”

“That being in Julian’s class means more than simply studying the Classics. That we have something nobody else does.”

“Yes,” Francis says. He slides a thumb into the cards, and draws one. “That I can show you these books and your eyes will linger.” He holds the card to his chest. “Now guess.”

“Diamonds.”

Francis turns it, still held close to his heart. Five of diamonds. “Lucky.”

“No,” Henry says. “Divine.”

  
  


**II.**

Henry first encounters Bunny like a tree meets a lightning storm: he comes away with bark peeling and whole boughs shaken to the ground, a scattering of leaves at his roots. He’s left standing in the hallway of the Lyceum and wondering if the man who just burst out of Julian’s classroom was an apparition. If he’d imagined the whole encounter: the hand on his shoulder, those wild eyes behind glasses so like his own, that self-assured voice.

“He’ll come ‘round, you’ll see.”

Henry lets the storm pass and then steps through its wake, tiptoeing over debris, into the classroom.

“Ooh,” Arabella says, “you just met Bunny.”

“Bunny?”

“Edmund, really. Tall, blonde, a little rumpled?” She crosses her legs and leans back in her chair, beckoning Henry to come and sit. “Bunny’s been trying to get into the Classics program for some time now. At least a year! Bless him, he thinks that just because he comes from money he can waltz through any open door.”

Henry looks around their classroom table. Arabella is a Rhode Island heiress, Wilson’s family were in Boston before Paul Revere. The seniors in their class—Landon, Everett, Paul—Henry doesn’t know them as well but he imagines their backgrounds are much the same, if their dress and cadence and fountain pens are anything to go by. And it’s not as though he, Henry, stands out among them.

“Of course, it’s never going to work out,” Wilson interjects. “He’s crazier than Caligula.”

Paul slaps his thigh, barks out a laugh. “Are we talking about Bunny? God, what a _card_.”

“Honestly, I’d love to have him in the class,” Everett says. He brandishes his book of _Odes_ : “I want to hear what he has to say about Horace. _Dulce et_ —what’s that? I don’t think he knows what _decorum est_.”

Wilson laughs so hard that he nearly spills ink across the table. Henry watches, tight-lipped, and he’s thankful that Julian comes out of the office a moment later and tells them all, “Settle down, now. What’s got you all laughing?”

Nobody tells.

That weekend, Arabella invites Henry to a party at her friend’s house off campus. It’s rained all day and the entrance is strewn with leaves and twigs and dirt. The coat rack is so laden it’s threatening to topple like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Henry carries his coat on his arm and follows Arabella to the drawing room, where Wilson is sitting at a too-small card table, playing with Paul, Everett, and—Bunny.

There’s no reason Bunny _shouldn’t_ be there—it’s not as though anyone from their class is throwing the party, sending out the invites. Bunny shows his hand and Everett howls: “Oh, good man, Corcoran!” Paul laughs and slaps Bunny’s shoulder.

Henry’s surprise must show on his face.

“Oh, I _know_ ,” Arabella says, as Landon joins them and hooks his elbow with hers. “We’re all frightful hypocrites.”

“Not I,” Landon says. “I won’t be debasing myself by fraternising with _Edmund_.”

Arabella shrugs. “Very well and good if Daddy’s a congressman. You can afford to think a little less of us Northern reprobates.”

“Nothing against the earth that bore him. I just can’t stand the man.”

“Look, Henry—” Arabella addresses him directly, though he hasn’t spoken, “—you have to know that some things are more important than a little petty politics. We’re all very exclusive about being in Julian’s class, blah blah. But look at the riff-raff outside this house, those awful dormitories on campus. People like _us_ stick together.”

Henry swallows. “Excuse me. I think I ought to fetch a drink.”

He slips out of the drawing room, seeks the kitchen. There’s an array of half-finished spirits set out across a lino countertop, chipped crystal glasses stacked precariously in a cabinet. Henry picks the cleanest-looking glass and pours himself a few fingers of cognac.

When he looks up, Landon is hovering in the doorway. “You understand, don’t you, Henry?”

“Understand what,” he says. “The social strata of Hampden college are quite apparent to me.”

“Fuck that,” Landon says. “I mean you understand that what we have in Julian’s classroom is something a person like Edmund could never begin to grasp.”

Henry breathes out. “Yes. I understand _that_.”

And he does: there is nowhere in the world as sacred as Julian Morrow’s classroom. Henry is prompt for all their lectures and visits Julian outside office hours, too, for extra discussion. He drafts his essays the moment they’re assigned and he makes sure to always be at least two weeks ahead on their prescribed readings. A place in Julian’s class is not _taken_ , but _earnt_.

He doesn’t think Arabella is _wrong_ , necessarily: when he walks across campus and sees so many people wasting their lives, wasting space, he knows he has to stick close to people from a background like his own. And yet—they all walk through life with the same ease, but Henry remains at a remove from the East Coast riches, a few paces to the side. Always aware of how many bad financial decisions stand between him and becoming someone he’d deride. 

One thing Henry knows for certain: Julian will never regret the offer he made.

The next time he sees Bunny is in the library, holed up at a corner table with a pile of textbooks around him like a siege wall. Henry stands and stares a moment too long, and when Bunny next looks up their eyes meet.

“You!” Bunny says. “Henry, isn’t it—from Julian’s class? Now this is a stroke of luck. Could you give me a hand with this?”

Reluctantly, Henry joins him at the table. “Greek?”

“Homer. Come on, you can recognise Homer, can’t you?”

Yes, and Henry could tell him exactly which passage of the Odyssey he was currently butchering, without so much as looking at the book propped open on the desk. “But you’re not a Classics student. You mean to tell me you’re doing this for fun?”

“No, of course not. Not for fun.” Bunny shakes his head fervently. He jabs a finger at the page. “For _love_.”

When Henry is silent, Bunny adds, “What? Does that surprise you?”

“A little,” Henry admits.

“The ancient world is my calling,” Bunny says. “Now look here, I’m struggling with this passage. Help me out.”

Well—what harm could it do? Bunny isn’t in their class. And Henry understands what it means to love Homer, knows that feeling too well of being pulled to a text, to the task of unravelling its meaning.

Bunny slides his translation across the desk, and, sighing, Henry begins to read. It’s not the _worst_ translation he’s ever seen. Already a few words in, he notices an error: “You’ve completely misunderstood the verb here.”

A week later, Henry walks into Julian’s classroom to see Bunny sitting between Everett and Wilson, laughing at a joke Henry will never hear. Bunny looks up, grinning. “Henry Winter!”

“Yes,” Henry says. He doesn’t know what else to say.

“Look who’s joined us at last,” Wilson says, amused. “Word is that Julian was rather impressed by his new translations of the Odyssey.”

“Is that so.” Henry’s gaze darts to Landon, arms folded at the far end of the table. Landon doesn’t meet his eye. “Well—congratulations.”

Bunny shrugs it off. “It was bound to happen eventually. I put a lot of work into those translations, you know.”

The Lyceum classroom grows yards smaller that day.

  
  


**I.**

A gust of wind hits the Lyceum full-force and shakes the glass in its worn iron frames. In Boston there are houses with Tyrian purple windowpanes; an excess of manganese oxide in the glass. And like the stripes that marked a Praetorian, the inhabitants of those afflicted houses wore their windows as a status symbol. Though Hampden is just about as far from Boston as you can get without leaving the golden glow of a New England sky, it strikes Henry now that purple would suit the Lyceum: he casts his eyes around the artful clutter of Julian’s classroom and paints a lilac sheen atop the books, the flowers. A door to the past, a perpetual sunset.

He’s early, after eight minutes pacing the corridor, adjusting his tie and rehearsing his speech: this is why you should accept me into the Classics program. For all his confidence, the doubt has only just set in. Here in this mirage, so unlike the rest of Hampden, he feels more at home and more lost than ever.

Julian’s message said _let yourself in_ but even so, Henry would not have needed the invitation. He spoke to two of Julian’s students just last week—Arabella and Wilson, two years older, and impossibly glamorous New Englanders to Henry’s untrained Midwestern eye. They had warned him that Julian was no conventional professor and that he admired confidence. That Henry ought to let himself into the classroom and show Julian that he belonged there.

“Of course, you already dress like one of us,” Wilson said, appreciative. He reached out and flicked Henry’s starched collar. “Your supercilious manner leaves something to be desired.”

“Leave him be,” Arabella said. “He’s new.”

Henry hadn’t known what to make of that—or later, when he heard Arabella whisper, “You know he’s plenty supercilious enough.”

Why can’t people just say what they mean?

The wind picks up again; a yellowing leaf hits the window and slides down, out of sight. Someone outside shrieks, the sound rising up from the lawns and foundering in the turbulent air. Henry presses his fingertips to the varnished mahogany of the classroom table and feels his way along the age lines in the wood.

Hampden makes him feel so small. This room makes him feel like a giant, broad shoulders and wide palms clumsily smacking against the fragility of all that Julian’s collected in this place. Henry has never known what to make of contradictions.

At the far end of the classroom, the office door creaks open, a sound so distant it could almost be the wind.

Julian appears in a shaft of light, a bookshelf like a treasure chest glinting from the wall behind him. “Henry Winter! Do come in.”

Henry lifts his fingers from the table and goes towards that glimpse of Elysium.

“Sit down, sit down,” Julian says, gesturing to the opposite seat at his desk. “I understand you want to join my Classics program.”

Not that Henry had ever said it explicitly—but, he supposes, why else would someone request a meeting with Julian?

“Yes, that’s right,” he says.

Julian nods. There’s a teacup sitting atop a stack of three books on his desk, a piece of notepaper beneath it by way of a coaster. “He’s eccentric,” Wilson said, of Julian. “But not in the ways you expect.” An empty teacup on a notepaper coaster—it’s hardly some great eccentricity, no more scatterbrained than any other elderly professor with more books than common sense. Henry scans Julian’s desk for other hints, but apart from the sheer volume of educational material in this room there is nothing to mark Julian apart but hearsay. He carries these myths on his person, in the light behind his eyes.

“Your record of study is very impressive,” Julian says. Before Henry can thank him, he asks: “What is it that drew you to Hampden?”

 _You_ , Henry does not say. He isn’t prepared for this question, and he will scold himself for the oversight later. Right now he needs an answer: not what drew him to the Classics, but what drew him _here_. Ever tempted by honesty, but ever swayed in the other direction by reflex, he lies by omission: “The natural environment is unparalleled.”

“You hail from Missouri, do you not?” Julian’s face is carefully measured, just as his letter had been: _I will conduct an interview in person upon your arrival at Hampden College, to determine your eligibility for my Classics program._ It was, as Henry’s father is fond of saying, “One hell of a gamble.”

“Additionally, I spent some time comparing the liberal arts programs at several colleges and universities,” Henry continues, his origins being of no relevance to this conversation. “I determined that the structure of the course at Hampden was best-suited to my specifications.”

“Harvard or Yale would have taken you in a heartbeat,” Julian says, and he makes a show of looking through some papers on his desk, which they both know well are not Henry’s records or letters. “But you crave something even more exclusive and elusive than the prestige of those ivy-wreathed halls can provide, don’t you?”

The reason that gambling becomes so addictive is because it’s simple. Everywhere else in life, a choice is a demand. Gambling creates the illusion of choice but in reality there are only two: all in, or back out. And once you have chosen to be _all in_ , there is only one choice to make, and you make it again, and again.

“The Romans wore crowns of laurel,” Henry says.

Maybe this could be just as easy.

Julian reaches a hand across the table. “Welcome to the rest of your life.”


End file.
